My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love
by Razumikhins
Summary: "His skin was studded with blue, purple and yellow, turned into a canvas of violence, yells and protests." The Wall has been torn to pieces. Gilbert's a punk who still wants to believe in humanity. Ludwig's a quiet student who wishes his brother would just stop getting in trouble. Ex-East Berlin, 1990s, human AU.


The crowd, arms in the air, passionate screams, diluting all the other noises in the air. Muting the sound of irregular steps solidly stomping on the ground. You don't feel the fatigue leaking into your muscles, your fingers growing numb. Not realizing your voice has gone hoarse and your throat sore until the demonstration is over, once your voice stops blending with the others', once you're alone again, powerless.

Gilbert was holding a sign in his right hand, where you could read some socialist-sounding slogan, while his left one was folded into a fist, high in the air, among dozens of others. They were angry, revolted. And still, they hoped.

All these demonstrations were walks of hope. The hope of reaching their goal, of changing the world (because despite everything, they believed. Despite what they all said, the old people, the media, all of those who laughed and doubted). And they were holding on to their cardboard signs and their ripped fabric flags. Words were their only weapon. Again and again they hoped that this quest for peace wouldn't end up in a fog of tear gas.

Demonstrations were important. Gilbert found them comforting, in a way. They gave him the confirmation that he wasn't alone thinking these thoughts. It felt good to scream what you were thinking. _While others were thinking it, whispering it to themselves in their mind._ So he continued to walk, in the middle of this crowd, among those people, this living and determined mass.

Gilbert didn't believe in lost causes. If they're lost, all we have to do is look for them and find them. That is why he was there, just like the others. That was to find them, bring them back on the map, the stranded causes. Today had been a good day. They made lots of noise. Everyone was yelling with the same intensity, fervently, with passion. He wished it could last forever.

But of course, nothing lasted forever. Soon enough the passionate yelling would turn into alarmed screams, accompanied by the police sirens piercing the atmosphere. The mass that looked so united, so solid had fallen apart, people running everywhere, escaping the police officers and the batons shining in their hands. Gilbert quickly dropped his sign and stated running. He didn't know where he was running to, all he wanted was to get away from the men in uniforms.

He jumped over a fence, ripping his old and washed-out jeans in the process. He ran in streets he didn't know, houses he'd never seen before blurry before his eyes. He could still hear the sound of chaos, slowly drifting away, replaced with the heavy breathing and thud of boots on the ground. He wasn't the only one who took that route. It had been a mistake.

That path was unknown to him, and of course, with his usual luck, it was a dead end. He smashed his fists at the brick wall in defeat, turned around and reluctantly put his hands on his head. Then it wasn't long before he found himself stuck in the back of a police car, hands tied behind his back, with a few other strangers. He sighed. Looked like it had happened again. No matter how often it ended up like that, Gilbert couldn't stop. No matter how much tear gas, how much bruises, it was all worth it. Truly, if it weren't for all the guilt building up inside him at the thought of leaving Ludwig home alone again for the night, he wouldn't mind it. Not as much, at least.

All he could see was white. A kind of dirty, tainted white, turning into gray or green, he couldn't really tell. The officer threw him into a small space, freeing his hands. Gilbert carefully folded his legs and sat on the dusty concrete floor.

His body ached, a dulled pain that was spreading in his muscles, in his head. He was getting used to it, however. The authorities never really liked protesters, marginals or punks and Gilbert fell in all three of these categories. Sigh. Nothing new. No, what he had on his mind was his brother. Ludwig occupied his mind quite a lot.

He knew Ludwig really didn't like him participating in these demonstrations, spending all these hours in prison. But he also knew Ludwig understood. He understood his need to fight, to make his voice heard. Gilbert felt like his country had been stolen. Stolen by greedy politicians, buried under the crumbs of the Wall.

Ludwig looked outside the small window in his room. Once again Gilbert hadn't come home. It wasn't the first time, yet Ludwig did not want to say he had gotten used to it. He could never really get used to an empty house, to another day spent alone. To repeating in his head over and over _please let him be okay_.

He had trouble concentrating on his work. Equations were floating in front of his eyes, constants and variables getting mixed up, squinting more and more to read his textbook because the sun was slowly lowering in the sky. And again, he was waiting for the sound of the door opening, of his brother coming back at last. Often bruised, constantly tired.

 _He always got back. Why would it change today_? That's what Ludwig keeps telling himself and yet, he can't help but imagine the worst. He'd always been like that. Working hard to make sure everything was okay, never leaving any possibility for failure.

However, he could not stop his brother from leaving the house and taking part in those activities. He had tried, and kept trying, but it never worked. They were both too stubborn.

At last he heard the sound he had been imagining for the last few hours. The old swollen wood of the door scratching against the door frame. Ludwig dropped his pen, running out of his room to his brother. Gilbert was there, for real, in front of him. Ludwig sighed in relief. He did come home again. He always did.

"I'll go get the first aid kit."

As usual, Ludwig would briefly disappear in the bathroom while Gilbert waiting for him on a nearby chair. It was now a familiar scene in the Beilschmidt household. Ludwig got out the gauze, disinfectant, cotton balls and everything else you'd expect to find in a first aid kit. He neatly aligned them on the table, only keeping the disinfectant bottle in his hand. He took Gilbert's hand.

"Why do you do this?", he softly asked, almost whispering, with a pained look on his face.

Ludwig laid his eyes on his brother's arm. His skin was studded with blue, purple and yellow, turned into a canvas of violence, yells and protests. His wrists were still red from the handcuffs digging deeper and deeper into them, rough metal cutting into the skin.

Gilbert let out a small hiss as the antiseptic was cleaning his cuts, running over the dirt of the streets, of the prison, of every place that he couldn't recognize anymore. It still didn't hurt as much as the blows, the yelling echoing in his head and the emptiness of the prison cell. Plus the feeling of Ludwig's skin against his own, the light of the naked bulb getting lost into his pale hair and the sound of his voice muttering to himself made it all bearable.

Ludwig glanced at the clock that was loudly ticking on the wall. It made a calming sound, made him feel like the Earth was finally rotating again. Seeing his brother in this state, literally broken by the batons and the thought of another defeat for his cause was hard, it really was, but Ludwig could not help but feel relieved to see him at all, to see him breathing and okay. Everything else - studies, politics and the outside world - could wait.


End file.
